Laban Rata is the guesthouse on Mount Kinabalu where most trekkers stay overnight on their climb up the mountain.
I'm pretty sure we left the park HQ in darkness on our climb to the top. I do recall I hiked all the way up to the summit from the park HQ and all the way back again. The first 5 km from the park HQ takes you to the Timpohon Gate and you can take a minibus this far these days. But, if you hike all the way, as you might glean from yesterday's photo, you initially descend before you start to climb.
Laban Rata is pretty much at the altitude where the vegetation peters out and the base granite starts. The trek there is through the jungle/rainforest so it can be pretty warm and humid. Most of the climb that I recall was this seemingly endless zigzag of stairs cut into the side of the hill and shored up with wood or stone, without which the entire climb would be a muddy scramble.
It's pretty tough to climb these stairs and I found it mostly to be a head-down, grinding experience rather than a lighthearted trek. As you can see from the photo, no special gear is needed, but many people take too much stuff rather than too little. Ditch the luxuries and just take the essentials, bearing in mind that most of the essentials will also turn out to be luxuries you could have left behind.
